Lauryn Hill has been sued by her Fugees bandmate, Pras Michél, over allegations of “fraud and breach of contract.” The suit is said to be in connection with the cancellation of their 2023 reunion tour.
According to Michél, Lauryn Hill “completely mismanaged” the setup, marketing, and budgeting of their canceled 2023 tour.
He believed the show could have been “a huge commercial success since most of the shows for the entire arena-size tour were sold out in advance.”
The rapper, who released a diss song in August, also asserts that Hill controlled the tour budget, which had bloated and fictitious expenses.
He further alleged that Lauryn rejected a $5 million offer for the Fugees to perform at the 2024 Coachella music festival because she felt “snubbed” that a different artiste was named the headliner for the concert.
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Lauryn Hill is said to have proposed the Fugees reunion idea early in 2023 to Wyclef Jean after she had been on a “failed solo tour.”
“She realized that the only chance for her to perform at arena-size venues and feed her insatiable ego would be to reunite with Michél and Jean and bill the 25th-anniversary tour as a ‘Fugees” tour,” Pras stated in the suit.
The suit, among other things, also blames the singer for “tarnishing the Fugees brand” due to “her habit of showing up late for shows, sometimes by as many as two to three hours.”
An attorney for Pras Michél released a statement early this week confirming the filing of the suit.
“This morning, we filed a complaint for Prakazrel ‘Pras’ Michel against Lauryn Hill and MLH Touring, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York for fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and breach of contract,” the statement read.
The 18-show Fugees U.S. tour was scheduled to kick off in August 2024. It was, however, canceled due to low ticket sales. The team was scheduled to continue to the United States until September 21, 2024, before touring the UK and Europe in October.
However, three days before the first scheduled show, the band canceled the US leg of the tour. In August this year, Pras, released a diss track about Lauryn Hill, following the tour cancellation.
Lauryn Hill later blamed the media’s “sensationalism” around previous shows and other reasons, including low ticket sales, for the cancellation.
